Auditor predicts Ontario betting & gaming will generate $75M by 2025

An Ontario Auditor General report has predicted that the regulated private market for online Ontario betting and gaming is expected to generate around $75 million in revenue for the provincial government over the next three years.

Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk’s latest fiscal review included a breakdown of the estimated net income of iGaming Ontario, the agency charged with executing operating agreements with companies and overseeing the market.

Lysyk’s report said that financial projections indicate that iGaming Ontario is expected to see net income of $18 million for the 2022-23 fiscal year, followed by $26 million for 2023-24 and $31 million for 2024-25, totalling a combined $75 million over three years.

The report noted that the total may vary as “given the lack of history in this area, it was not feasible to assess the reasonableness of the projections.” A small portion of iGaming-related funds is expected from sales tax on top of that $75 million projection.

One major aim of Ontario’s new market is to bring betting revenues from offshore and formerly grey market sites into regulated channels. It is estimated that Ontario residents were spending around $700 million a year on grey-market sites before April 4.

The auditor general’s report didn’t say anything about how much revenue private iGaming operators are expected to generate in Ontario overall. Whatever that number winds up being, the province’s reported tax rate for companies participating in the new iGaming market is 20% of their revenue.

iGaming Ontario also says its approach to reporting revenue will be communicated at a later time.

“iGO is encouraged by the number of operators that have joined the regulated market and the level of iGaming activity seen to date,” the agency told Covers. “Given the recency of the market launch and the anticipated growth as more operators go live, iGO is constantly in the process of reviewing and revising any forecasts made prior to launch.”

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